Braves News: Tyler Flowers and Travis d’Arnaud Out with COVID-19 Symptoms
Welcome to the craziness of the 2020 baseball season as the Atlanta Braves will be without both catchers on Opening Day because of COVID-19 symptoms.
To be clear, neither Atlanta Braves catcher Tyler Flowers nor Travis d’Arnaud have tested positive for COVID-19, but according to manager Brian Snitker, both are showing symptoms so they will stay in Atlanta and not make the trip to New York.
This coming just hours before the Braves are set to play their first game of the 2020 season.
Alex Jackson, who was already part of the Braves taxi squad in New York, will step in and get the start on Opening Day against the Mets.
The 24-year-old Jackson at least has some big league experience playing in four games last year, but he’s still looking for his first hit in the majors. That could be difficult on Friday going up against Jacob deGrom who has won two straight NL Cy Young awards.
William Contreras, who has yet to play above Double-A, will be added to the Braves’ roster as well and could make his big league debut this weekend.
The hope is still that Flowers and TDA get to feeling better soon and can rejoin the team quickly.
Since neither has tested positive for COVID-19 they don’t have to go through any protocols, they just simply have to start feeling better.
And that’s just the crazy world we live in right now where you have to be cautious about every little runny nose or cough.
That’s certainly justified when you’re working closely with a group of 30-40 players and managers — you want to air on the side of caution.
It’s just going to be part of this 2020 season and this is something I think we’ll see happen a lot.
Next. Braves-Mets Preview. dark
Again, hopefully, this is nothing serious for the Braves’ two primary catchers and they can rejoin the team soon.